


The Devil In All of Us

by rikerrsmile



Category: R5 (Band)
Genre: M/M, the one where ell is the devil and ross sells his soul
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 05:03:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7744360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rikerrsmile/pseuds/rikerrsmile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ross's mouth was dry, and he had suddenly lost his nerve. He was about to turn and walk away, forget the whole thing, when the man spoke again, seemingly reading Ross's mind. "Your brother won't survive. Not in the state he's in."</p>
<p>Ross froze. He swallowed hard, before opening his mouth to speak. "Can you save him?" His words were dry and raspy, a tinge of fear mixed with an overwhelming sadness. </p>
<p>"For a price, yes." The man responded, twirling his hair between his fingers absently. "For your soul, Ross Lynch, I could do anything."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devil In All of Us

**Author's Note:**

> Um, hey! My name is Alex, and this is my first story in quite some time, so constructive criticism is welcome. Just a small warning, this is violent and dark and will have smut in later chapters. Yeah...so, enjoy you sick bastards. :)

He hit the gas, speeding out of the parking lot. The city lights were too much for his bloodshot eyes so he squinted and kept driving. He drove and drove until the asphalt turned to gravel and buildings were few and far in between, eventually coming to stop outside of quite possibly the most dingy looking biker bar he’d ever seen. Without even bothering to take his keys out of the ignition, he opened his door and stepped out of the car on legs that threatened to collapse under him with the weight of his sorrow. 

Words swam in his head, deafening whispers that nearly made him vomit up his dinner. Terrible accident. Matter of days. Make him comfortable. The image of his brother lying in that bed hooked up to a number of machines doing nothing but waiting to die served a purpose in reminding him of where he was and what he had come to do. 

Ross was desperate.

And it was with this desperation that he dropped to his knees at the crossroads, a wooden box clutched in one hand, and began to dig. His fingers stung as he plunged them into the cool dirt, but he could barely feel it with the cold numbness that had begun to set in, his heart and mind hardening with resolve. He would save Ryland, no matter what it took. 

He looked down at the hole he had created, and took a deep breath. He’d always said that he’d go to hell and back for his family. It was time to put that truth to the test. Placing the wooden box into the hole, he began to cover it with the now loose dirt. The job done, he stood and pulled out a cigarette from his pack. Lighting up, he took a drag and felt the cool menthol burn the back of his throat. 

“Those’ll kill you, you know.” Ross heard from behind him, and spun around. In front of him stood a man about his height, his brown hair coming almost to his shoulders. He wore black jeans and a black tank top, his arms covered in tattoos. Ross’s mouth was dry, and he had suddenly lost his nerve. He was about to turn and walk away, forget the whole thing, when the man spoke again, seemingly reading Ross’s mind. “Your brother won’t survive. Not in the state he’s in.”

Ross froze. He swallowed hard, before opening his mouth to speak. “Can you save him?” His words were dry and raspy, a tinge of fear mixed with an overwhelming sadness. 

“For a price, yes.” The man responded, twirling his hair between his fingers absently. “For your soul, Ross Lynch, I could do anything.” The man took a step towards Ross, and before the blonde knew it, he was standing right in front of him, a hand wrapped around the frightened man's throat. “Son of the famous hunter Mark Lynch, who killed so many of my children in his prime. Oh yes, I would pay a hefty price to have the pleasure of torturing you for eternity.”

Ross gripped at the man's fingers, attempting to pry them away from his neck, but the brunette's inhuman strength proved to be too much for the blonde, and he was lifted off his feet by his throat. Black spots started to appear in his vision and he struggled for a moment before going limp, on the verge of unconsciousness. Just before Ross's vision faded completely, the man abruptly released his hold on the blonde and he fell to the ground where he crumpled. 

“I'm not my father.” Ross said, his voice raspy and weak. He pushed himself onto his knees and looked up at the brunette, a fierce determination in his eyes. 

“Clearly not.” The man said. “What would dear old dad say if he knew you were making deals with the devil? I'm not sure his poor heart could take it.” He sneered. 

Ross got to his feet, staring down the brunette. “Frankly, I don't care. I just want to save my brother.” 

“Well then, shall we?” The man asked, stepping close again, until the two were mere inches apart. “Ryland’s life for your soul?” Ross nodded, his eyes no longer showing fear but instead wore a look of desperation, determination and happiness at the thought of his baby brother getting to live a full life. “But you...you’re a special case.” The demon said, backing away again. “I’m not giving you the usual ten years. You get just long enough to see him awake and alive, and then your ass is mine.”

Ross’s eyes widened, that news being a curveball he wasn’t expecting. “What?” His voice was weak again. He’d figured he would have time, at least enough to sort things out. But, dying tonight? He just wasn’t ready. 

“Well?” The man asked. “Do we have a deal?” Ross swallowed hard. He took a step back and covered his face with his hands, thinking. “This is your only chance, Ross. Come with me tonight, or watch your baby brother waste away in that hospital. Choose.”

Letting out a deep breath, the blonde uncovered his face, eyes glistening with tears, and stepped back up to the demon. “Deal.”

And then they were kissing, the man’s fingers tightly entwined with Ross’s shirt, pulling him closer. In a whirl of movement, they were no longer at the crossroads but instead standing in the men’s bathroom of the Denver Health hospital. Ross broke the kiss, taken aback at the sudden change of scenery. The brunette nodded at him. “Go see your brother.”

The blonde pushed open the door and broke into a run. He sprinted past room after room, took an elevator up, and turned a corner to see Ryland, sitting bolt upright in bed, his mom crying as she hugged him. Ross covered his mouth, tears threatening to break through. His mom and dad looked up at him, beckoning him over. Suddenly, the demon was beside him, a hand on his shoulder. His father’s expression changed as the realization of what his son had done dawned on him, and he bolted from his chair, but not in enough time. Ross was gone. 

 

It was cold and dark, the chains fashioned around his wrists digging into his flesh painfully. He fought the bubble of panic seeming to be forcing its way up his throat and clenched his fists to keep himself from struggling against the restraints. He was crumpled on the floor, his arms held above his head by metal cuffs secured to the wall, his legs splayed out in front of him. Due to the silence, he assumed he was alone though he was unable to tell because there was not one source of light in the entire room. The air was ice cold, and though he couldn’t see it, his breath was coming out in clouds of vapor. Suddenly, he regretted everything. 

Time passed by agonizingly slow, and though it was hard to tell, he was sure he spent many days alone in that room, the dark and cold slowly driving him insane. He was unable to sleep thanks to the frigid temperature, so he sat awake, staring into the darkness in front of him. At some point he began to hallucinate, his brain making up for the lack of vision by causing him to see shadows and sense movement in the room though there was none. He started screaming early on, if only to hear something, anything at all.

He was shaking and whimpering, his hands twisting against the binds rhythmically, when he heard footsteps. Immediately, he stopped moving. Surely he was imagining things. His heart began to pound as the noise grew nearer, and very suddenly the room was flooded with light as a door in front of him opened. In walked the devil, wearing the same black jeans and tank top from before, his tattooed arms folded over his chest. “Well hello, Ross. I think it’s time I introduced myself.” The brunette spoke. “Humans sometimes refer to me as the devil, satan, the king of hell even. But you, you can call me Ellington.”

The cuffs around his wrists released, and his sore arms dropped to his sides. He glanced down at them to see his wrists bloody from struggling. Worse, the wounds looked to be infected, the edges of the friction burns a sickly green color. The sight was so gruesome that Ross tasted vomit in the back of his throat but quickly swallowed it away. He looked back up at the demon, Ellington, and bit back a cry of fear as the man stepped closer. 

Suddenly, Ross’s shirt had disappeared and sharp nails were dragging their way down his now bare chest. He threw himself to the side to escape the assault and crawled pathetically on his hands and knees into the corner of the room. There, he curled in on himself, his hands splayed out in front of him in a feeble attempt to protect himself from further attacks. A hard smack on the side of his head sent his whole body into the wall, and he cried out from the force of the hit. He felt hands on his legs dragging him forward and out of the safety of the corner. 

“Let’s get one thing straight. You don’t run away from me. It’ll only make me angry.” Ellington’s voice was low and stern. “You got that?” Ross nodded feverishly, refusing to look the demon in the eye. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.” The brunette ordered, taking a rough hold on Ross’s wrist, digging his nails into the wound. The blonde fixed his eyes on the ground, refusing. Ellington stood, brought his leg back, and swung forward. Everything went black.

 

Ross woke to a splitting headache. He grabbed his hair between his fingers and pulled, frustration and pain mixing to create an emotion he wasn’t sure how to handle. He shut his eyes tight, curled himself into a ball, and tried desperately to go back to sleep. The pain in his head was unbearable, and he touched his hair again to feel the dried blood that resided there. “Fuck you, Ellington.” He said quietly to himself. 

“Oh, you would.” A cruel voice responded, and Ross realized quickly that he wasn’t alone. He heard the strike of a match, and suddenly the small room was bathed in an orange light. Ellington brought the flame to the wick of a candle before blowing out the match. Ross could see again, and he didn’t like what he saw. A small metal table had been wheeled into the room, and though he couldn’t see what resided there, he was sure it didn’t bode well. 

The demon moved over to the table and picked up a bottle. Bringing it closer to Ross, he kneeled down to hold it close to the blonde’s face. “Know what this is?” No, he didn’t but he could read the label. Hydrochloric Acid. Ross didn’t like the way that sounded, not one bit. Ellington uncapped the bottle, and Ross got ready to bolt. “Move an inch, and I’ll pour this down your fucking throat.” The brunette said cruelly, a bubbly laugh following the statement. He pulled some of the liquid into a medicine dropper, and set down the bottle. Grabbing Ross’s chin harshly, he tipped the blonde’s head back and proceeded to drip the acid into his left eye. 

Ross immediately screamed in agony and jerked his head away, covering his eye with his hand. Ellington let him sit with the pain for a moment, before grabbing his face again and abruptly spraying water into his injured eye. He washed away the acid and pushed a piece of wet gauze against his face, fully covering his eye. “Oh, shut up.” The demon said carelessly, referring to the blonde’s pained whimpering. He taped the gauze down, and backed away. “Maybe that’ll teach you to look at me when I’m fucking talking to you. Now, what’s next?” Ellington asked aloud. “Hm, I think I’ll let you choose. Cuts or bruises?” Ross swallowed hard, hardly daring to glance away from the demon for a second, afraid that he would see it as disrespect. 

“I…” Ross trailed off, unsure of how to respond. 

“If you don’t choose, you get both. That’s how this works.” Ellington said, kneeling down beside the blonde. “So, I’ll ask you one more time. Cuts or bruises?”

 

Ross had chosen bruises. He didn’t know why. All he knew was that no matter what he would have said, what followed would have been terrible either way. His ribs were purple, Ellington having landed so many kicks there that the blonde could now hardly breathe. The right side of his jaw also bore some dark colors, as well as his chin, where the demon had kicked him so hard his head flew back and smacked into the wall, taking consciousness from him for a moment. 

Now, he lay on the cold concrete floor, still shirtless, pain radiating through his body with each breath he took. It was in this moment that Ross began to wish he was dead. But, as Ellington had informed him earlier in the ‘session’ as he called it, he couldn’t die. Well, technically, he was already dead. When the demon had taken him from that hospital, he had simply ripped his soul from his body, leaving what was left of him to collapse on the floor in front of his family, dead before he hit the ground. A body can’t survive without a soul, but a soul can survive without a body, and what he saw when he looked at himself was merely an echo of what he used to be. That’s how Ellington had put it, anyway. 

Ross placed his hand gently over his ribcage, feeling the way his breath shook with pain. His eye still burned as if someone had brought a flame to it, and his ears had taken up ringing loudly without stopping. His head pounded and his consciousness felt weak, like he might pass out at any second.

More than just his body hurt though. His heart ached at the loss of his life, his freedom, and the knowledge that he would never again see his family. He began to let his mind wander into the pain, wondering what they were doing, if everything was okay, if they would even miss him. He wondered how Ryland felt about what he had done for him, whether he felt mad or guilty or just glad to be rid of the brother that always overshadowed him. 

As if things couldn’t possibly get worse, in that exact moment, where Ross felt as if his whole world was imploding with pain, in sauntered Ellington. He was carrying something in his hand, and the fear of what might be done to him now proved to be too much for the blonde to handle. He curled into a tight ball, tucked his head between his knees, and began to cry.

He heard approaching footsteps, and a tap on the head by soft fingers alerted him to the fact that the demon was standing over him. “Look at me.” The brunette said, and, not daring to disobey, Ross lifted his head from between his knees to meet eyes with his captor. 

Ellington was holding something out to the blonde, and as his tearstained eyes began to focus, he realized that it was a cigarette. “Here.” The demon said simply. Ross sat up, looking up at Ellington with confusion. Why was he being nice? Seeing this hesitation, Ellington shrugged. “Smoke it if you want it, if not, that’s fine too.” 

After another moment of thought, Ross gingerly reached forward and grabbed the cigarette. He put it between his lips, and the brunette snapped his fingers. The end of the cigarette immediately began to burn, and the blonde pulled it from his lips to breathe out a cloud of pale smoke. He hadn’t smoked in days, so the nicotine buzz was serving its purpose in relaxing him, causing him to gently lean back on the wall, ignoring the way his ribs ached as he moved. 

Ellington smiled slightly. “Better?” He asked, and Ross nodded.

“Um, thank you.” The blonde said. He brought the cigarette to his lips and took another drag, relishing the burning sensation forming in the back of his throat.

“Mm hmm.” Ellington responded, leaning against the wall opposite the blonde. “How’s your eye?” He asked, and if Ross didn’t know better he would have sworn there was a hint of remorse in the brunettes voice. “Oh, and, here.” The demon snapped his fingers and suddenly Ross had a shirt again.

“Thanks.” The blonde said quietly. “And it’s okay. Still kind of hurts.” A long time passed without either man saying a word. Ross had only just finished his cigarette before Ellington turned towards the door. 

“Well, bye.” The demon said, and before the blonde knew it, he was once again in total darkness.


End file.
